#LLYOD BANKS INSTRUMENTAL FREE#
For a free album that makes sense – you wouldn’t want to go out of pocket for a bunch of hot 16’s you’re just giving away. Last time around guest appearances were limited to Prodigy and Styles P. There are two things I find surprising about “V6: The Gift” though. If you stop working you feel lazy, unproductive, and restless. I can understand that all too well – a workaholic’s got to work. It’s more likely that Banks is simply driven by an artistic impulse to create, a burning desire that can’t wait for music industry politics, and he’d rather just release what he’s got NOW and move on to another project. I don’t want to draw unreasonable conclusions on that basis given everybody is doing the same thing – it doesn’t prove G-Unit isn’t hot any more or that there aren’t labels out there who would sell it. In the meantime Lloyd Banks continues to give away G-Unit albums that I once would have paid $7-12.99 for in stores. We may all find that if we don’t feel rap music is worth paying for the next generation of talent may find it’s not worth making – and all we’ll be left with is free albums by poor imitations of Gucci Mane & Jay-Z. I know it’s a tough economy, but don’t be too stingy. I’m not getting on my soapbox again though. Can you break without a beat? What would you scratch without lyrical heat? It’s an ongoing struggle, and when rap songs become worthless, it hurts one of hip-hop’s elements in a big way – one all the others lean on to some degree.
The fight for mainstream acceptance as an art and culture didn’t just stop 5-10 years ago with a collective “we made it fam, it’s all good now” because a few colleges teach some rap music classes. For the consumer it may seem like a great situation to be in, when big rap artists like Busta Rhymes and Game now routinely give away free shit, but it also represents a dangerous devaluation of what hip-hop is worth. I felt then as I do now that the availability of no cost albums online has reached a saturation point that’s increasingly detrimental to hip-hop artists as a whole. My review of “The Cold Corner” was as much editorial as review, and I’m willing to cop to that.
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